Muriel Barbery. (2016). The Life of Elves. Europa.

Muriel Barbery. 2016. The Life of Elves. Europa.

Muriel Barbery, The Life of Elves. Europa, 2016.

Muriel Barbery. The Life of Elves. Europa, 2016.

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1. • value: mist
2. • value: spiritual
3. • value: Faith
4. • value: dream
5. • value: War
6. • value: childhood
7. • value: translation
8. • value: senses
9. • value: spirit
10. • value: metaphysical
11. • value: transcendence
12. • value: mystical
13. • value: life
14. • value: growing up
15. • value: Nature
16. • value: Rome
17. • value: girls
18. • value: italian
19. • value: Fiction
20. • value: inspiring
21. • value: harmony
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23. • value: peace
24. • value: evil
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31. • value: Philosophical
32. • value: art
33. • value: France
34. • value: magical realism
35. • value: french
36. • value: elves
37. • value: Divine
38. • value: Inspirational
39. • value: Burgundy
40. • value: Contemporary
41. • value: Europe
42. • value: Environment
43. • value: Magic
44. • value: orphan
45. • value: Pantheism
46. • value: Song
47. • value: Music
48. • value: creatures
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50. • value: tolkien
51. • value: enchantment
52. • value: fantasy
53. • value: Maestro
54. • value: Italy
55. • value: ethereal
56. • value: girlhood
57. • value: foundlings
58. • value: Alison Anderson
59. • value: Paulo Coehlo

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2016-02-09T00:00:00-05:00

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title

The Life of Elves

fullDescription

An inspiring literary fantasy about two gifted girls from the bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Life of Elves sings of the human spirit and conveys a message of hope and faith.
Muriel Barbery's new novel is the first of two books about Maria and Clara, unforgettable heroines of a world facing annihilation. Animated by a large cast of endearing characters, it is a timeless story about the forces of good and evil and a moving meditation on the power of nature, music, art, storytelling, and love.
When the harmony between living beings turns to discord, the seasons will be loosed from their moorings and the natural world thrown into disarray; human beings—no longer capable of feeling either empathy or enchantment—will abandon themselves to hate, violence, and war.
An epic battle between forces that wish to reestablish harmony in the world and those that wish to shatter it definitively is being waged on earth and in the mysterious land of mist, where the elves dwell. A ragtag army of rural peasants gathers in readiness for the fight—their weapons, an age-old kinship with the land and an affinity for magic. But humankind cannot hope to win this battle alone. Victory depends on help from the inhabitants of a world that is hidden from human sight. Hope rests with Maria and Clara, two girls whose prodigious artistic talents and deep connections with nature make communion with the numinous realm possible.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

reviews

1. • premium: True
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     January 4, 2016
     In an unnamed year, France and Italy are home to small groups of elves living precariously among dangerous humans. Two young girls can bridge the gap between human and elven cultures and save the elves, but only if they survive a story whose urgency doesn’t match its pace. Anderson captures the rich, beautiful language of Barbery (Gourmet Rhapsody), such as “the noble dust of cellars” and “childhood is the dream that allows us to understand what we do not yet know.” Despite elven politics, Christianity, and war, the plot feels secondary and downplayed. Distant narration, exemplified by an entire chapter without dialogue and phrases like “It must be told what this child was,” draw attention to the words, not the characters. Just as battle is coming, readers are stopped by descriptions of the numerous participants, breaking the tension and typifying a reading experience in which the parts are greater than the whole.

2. • premium: True
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     December 1, 2015
     The conjoined powers of two magical children bring about a new alliance to thwart evil and unite the natural world in this fantastical novel from a bestselling French writer. Seven years after the publication of her surprise international hit, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (2008), Barbery returns with something completely different: a fairy story of parallel but connected human and elf worlds and of dark forces and extraordinary goodness clashing in an age-old battle. Neither exactly pantheistic nor biblical, the novel expresses a spirituality rooted in art, nature, and, above all, love. Its heroines are Maria and Clara, the former born of elf parents but perfectly human in appearance, the latter half human, half elf. Their gifts, even at age 12, are prodigious. Maria's powers are elemental and growing, Clara's derive from music, but their abilities reach far wider and form a bulwark against the overwhelming evil led by a seductive entity named Aelius. Barbery's rhapsodic descriptions of the Burgundy landscape and peasantry, wildlife and creativity are eclipsed by more visionary and mystical scenarios studded with lambent imagery: a red bridge, an iris, a path of stones. Intense and impassioned but also fitfully obscure, distracted by tangents, and teasingly incomplete (especially when it comes to those dark forces), the novel can both enchant and confound. There are echoes of Milton, Tolkien, and Rowling, especially in the epic attack that suddenly pits Maria, her family, and community against the unearthly powers of a "storm-clad devil." While the Elfin Council watches, Maria and Clara fight the first battle in a war that may be part historical and part ecological and which concludes, at least for the elves, on a sober yet optimistic note. Although possibly too abstract for children and too fey for some adults, this fervent, idiosyncratic fable is undeniable evidence of a richly lyrical imagination.

     COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     January 1, 2016
     

     Barbery follows up The Elegance of the Hedgehog, an international phenomenon, with a gauzy, glimmering fantasy that has also drawn worldwide acclaim. Cutting across a meadow, a little girl named Maria senses a presence and, as snow begins falling, is led into the forest by a creature that blends attributes of horse, man, and wild boar and ends up with four old women in an isolated village in Burgundy. High in the mountains in Abruzzo, young Clara, who lives with a country priest and his illiterate housekeeper, demonstrates such a profound, almost mystical capacity for music that she is sent to Rome to study. In fact, these two gifted girls will soon be communing with a world beyond ours as they help fight a battle against the darkness. VERDICT The magical frame and lush loveliness of the writing might be oversweet for some readers, but many fans of both Barbery and fantasy from writers like Alice Hoffman and Sarah Addison Allen will be enchanted.

     Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 1, 2016
     An orphan girl is left on the steps of a farmhouse late one snowy night. Raised in the French countryside by a loving family, she finds she has a strong, even magical, affinity with the natural world around her. One border over, in a rural mountain town in Italy, another orphan girl is raised by a priest and his housekeeper. When it is found that she has a seemingly supernatural gift for the piano, she is sent to Rome for further training. There she is trained by a maestro in both the musical and the magical arts. Countries apart, the two girls are connected in a way few understand, but as the evil force of war approaches, their birthright and the link between them grow increasingly important. Vivid imagery and a thread of mystery draw readers into the timeless and ethereal world of these young girls with a destiny to fulfill. Passionate and lyrical, the newest novel from internationally best-selling Barbery (The Elegance of the Hedgehog, 2008) is a richly imagined tale full of enchanting characters whom readers will love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

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shortDescription

A moving and deeply felt homage to the power of nature and art by one of the world's most beloved authors.
Maria lives in a remote village in Burgundy, where she learns that she has a gift for communicating with nature. Hundreds of miles away in Italy, Clara discovers that she possesses a stunning musical genius and is sent from the countryside to Rome to develop her preternatural abilities. Barbery's The Life of the Elves tells the story of two children whose extraordinary talents will bring them into contact with magical worlds and malevolent forces. if, againts all odds, they can be brought together, their meeting may shape the course of history.
Seven years after the publication of her international bestseller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery returns with a lyrical novel about the quest for enchantment in a world that seems to have forgotten such a thing ever existed. With its cast of unforgettable characters, each fighting to preserve a...

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   • description: Fiction / Fantasy / General
2. • code: FIC019000
   • description: Fiction / Literary
3. • code: FIC061000
   • description: Fiction / Magical Realism